Secrets, Lies and Cover Stories
by MoonAtNoon
Summary: Bella and Edward had a baby when they were fifteen. She managed to hide it from her family and Edward took their daughter as soon as she was born. Three years later, what has changed? AH/AU/OOC/Lang/Rated M
1. Prologue

_**Prologue**_

_September 1st, 2007_

The tiny bundle asleep on the bed had no clue that she wouldn't be coming home with me. She would probably hate me for that when she grew up but that would only be because she wouldn't know what I'd saved her from by separating us. She'd hate me worse if I made her suffer through my life.

"There's nothing they can do now, she's here, you don't have to do this and forget about it." A soft voice said from across the room.

I didn't look up. "I won't forget." I whispered. The smell of tears began in my nose before they'd even welled in my eyes yet; I inhaled deeply and wiped my fingers over my eyelids. "I do have to do this, for more reasons than there are not to."

Her tiny features jumped as she twitched in her dreams; eyelids dancing around. It wasn't all that hard to look away. Although I'd spent the past hour staring at her in near silence, I'd never _really_ looked or allowed the bond to cement as most people do the first time they see their children. _They_ let it happen without a fight. _I_ held it off with everything I had left in me.

"Take her," I whispered. "They said she's fine and can go home, take her."

A long moment passed in silence then Edward stood up and slowly moved towards the bed. He sat on the end at an angle facing me; his hand reached for mine and I absently gave it to him.

"I'll see you in a couple of days, 'kay? I'll come and get you from the park." He squeezed my hand firmly as he spoke. I nodded in response. "Don't watch." He advised as he let go of my hand and started turning the baby towards him.

I knew he meant don't watch him leave and I had no intention to. I closed my eyes and waited, listening as he quietly walked from the room. The air in the automatic door shutter whooshed then it clicked into the latch and I opened my eyes.

The room was empty. Just the ugly light green of hospital furniture. Edward had already had all the baby stuff removed—vaguely informing the nurses of the situation, so they knew why we wouldn't be here more than a couple of hours post-birth.

They didn't approve. Clearly. But couldn't do anything about it.

I slipped off the bed and went into the bathroom, showering until all traces and smells of hospital and birth were off me. I had to go home now and pretend I had just gotten my period. Not that my family had even noticed the lack of one for the past eight months.

Naturally, I'd made sure of that. Throwing tampon after tampon down the toilet for one week a month and making sure my mother took notice of the fact I needed more and therefore must have my period.

It's not like trips to the bathroom weren't necessary anyway with a constantly growing baby pressed against my bladder.

Right now they thought I was at school. The school thought I was jigging. I was jigging to have a baby while my parents are at work.

God knows how many lies I've told now. My entire life practically is one.

I dressed in the clothes I'd worn here today and signed myself out just two hours after having a child.

The nurse behind the counter gave me a judgmental look that I almost completely ignored. _Almost_. I did roll my eyes at her so on some level I noticed the quirked eyebrow.

Being outside made it easier to put on a normal expression. Out here I was insignificant and no one knew what my problem was. I probably looked stoned to be honest, red eyes, distant face like I was looking straight through everything rather than at it.

Being out here was easier.

**Any and all questions will be answered to the best of my ability - without giving away future plot points - so ask away.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: None of the places, streets, stores or roads in this story are real (as far as I know). I haven't done research beyond the basics of Delaware educational calendar's, general weather patterns and a little veterinary science although I've found no evidence of a vet nursing course available at UoD. Don't quote me on any of that stuff either. Oh, and I don't own Twilight either :P**

**Some of you were unsure of Bella and/or Edward's ages, in the prologue they were fifteen and sixteen respectively. Now they're eighteen and nineteen. Bella's birthday is twelve days after her daughters, not three, as I'm sure most of you picked up on.**

_**Chapter One**_

_September 1st, 2010_

"Ow! Mom! Tell Ricky to stop hitting me!" My little sister, Angela, screeched beside me.

"Bella, could you deal with them, I'm on the phone?" Mom yelled over her shoulder the returned to the conversation she was having with whichever Bridezilla was cracking the whip this week.

I remained motionless for a few seconds, staring at the cars around us in this ridiculous early morning traffic jam. Angela screamed again like a cat with its tail stepped on and Eric cackled evilly.

My teeth clenched as yet another car alarm pitched noise came from my sister then lunged across the back seat and slammed the side of my fist down on my brother's knee.

"Leave her alone, ass pirate!" I snarled at him. He grabbed his knee and howled in pain; Angela slumped back in the chair still looking pissed but relieved nonetheless.

The sound of Mom trying to sort out catering shit took over the majority of the noise inside the car.

"You're a fucking bitch, Isabella." Eric grumbled while he continued to hold his leg.

"You're a fucking bully, Eric." I shot back. It's not like either of us were lying. I _was_ really a bitch and he _was_ really a bully.

"Don't call me Eric." he snapped. He was in this phase at the moment where he only accepted being called Ricky—something about his image or some shit. What kind of image a fourteen year old has I'm not sure.

So me being a bitch, I called him Eric. That and it was actually his name for thirteen years of his life.

"Fine, knob jockey."

He growled with irritation and hit Angela again rather than me. So I swung my arm over and slapped him in the forehead so hard his head hit the seat before she even managed to scream again from the elbowing he gave her.

"Leave her alone." I warned once more then turned back to the window.

The traffic finally started moving and we eventually reached their schools right as all three of the bells went at the elementary, middle and high schools that all sat on the same road.

Along with the neighborhood animal shelter and police station.

This was the street where everything came to be locked up.

"Move, move, move, move!" Mom hurried us out of the car like we had bombs strapped to us.

I jumped out and dragged Angela with me so Eric couldn't get one last shot in before school and then casually shoved her down the path in the general direction of the elementary school.

"Toughen up, you're never gonna make it in high school." I said as she walked off.

"Don't worry about me, I'll actually _pass_ my twelfth grade exams." she called back over her shoulder, grinning cheekily.

I scoffed, shaking my head at her cockiness. Although, she was already smarter than our dipshit brother.

:-:-:-:

"Bella? Bella? ISABELLA?"

Whack!

"What?" My head snapped to the place where the person who'd hit me was sitting. I came face to face with my best friend, Rosalie, who was wide eyed and impatient beside me at the lunch table in the staff room of the veterinary hospital we were both doing our practical vet nursing at.

"Earth to fucking Isabella! Hello? Come in please! Could you come down from the clouds and join the rest of us?" She huffed out a breath and then visibly relaxed a little.

"What's up?" I scanned the faces of the students at the table, none of them seeming too interested in the proceedings between us.

"Ironically, I was trying to ask you why you're all weird and distant today. But low and behold, I couldn't get a response to that because you were being all weird and distant when I asked." She pushed her fingers through her straight, blonde hair from her forehead back then let it fall as it may.

Today was September 1st 2010. My daughters third birthday.

"I was up late last night; I didn't get to sleep until four so I'm a little tired." I offered as an explanation.

"You told me you were going to sleep at twelve. Why were you still up at four?" she questioned.

I'd forgotten that detail when manufacturing my lie on the spot. We'd been instant messaging until I had in fact gone to sleep at midnight.

"The neighbors were fucking." I told her, trying for a reason she couldn't question this time.

"For _four_ hours. I've gotta meet your neighbor!" Rose declared, suddenly brighter.

"They're gay guys."

She slouched. "All the good ones are gay, even the straight ones…" she sighed with disappointment.

Rose was a bona fide slut. She didn't even have any kind of standard beyond physical appearance. But she was fun and reliable.

Probably the reason all the guys loved her so much as well…

That was the end of the subject and lunch finished without too much more attention needed from me.

:-:-:-:

"Stop pulling my hair! Ow! Stop it!" Angela yowled.

My teeth ground together as this morning and every other car trip with the two of them replayed itself.

"Knock it off!" Dad ordered in a loud, life threatening voice.

Silence began in the back seat and I breathed a sigh of relief as he drove us through suburban hell—aka, our neighborhood. Identical houses on identical lots with identical flowers planted in identical layouts under identical hedges along the front of identical porch railings.

Then there was our house. Brown lawn, dead flowers, spiky sticks where the hedges that had been there when we moved in once were, peeling paint and broken sprinkler equipment all over the dry grass where it had been abandoned since summer.

I got out of the car, once again dragging Angela with me before she could be pinched or poked or punched, whatever the sack sucker wanted to do to her next. She tripped on a stone before she'd even taken a step; I automatically yanked her to her feet by one hand then left once she was upright again and capable of running from our brother.

"Bella, I need you to—" Dad started to ask but I cut him off, I had other more important things to do.

"Can't. I've got shit to attend to." I said, walking briskly across the front lawn and into the house.

The house was all right, unlike the outside, the inside was kept clean and orderly. It was simply a matter us all disliking spending time outside that caused the exterior of our house to rot away. Literally in some spots.

I locked the door when I got to my room and dropped my bag on the floor before climbing up onto the bed. Something Edward and I had arranged was birthday photos and various holidays—Thanks Giving, Christmas, Easter—so I could see how she was growing. _She_ being Vanessa. Edward's little sister, Alice, had chosen the name seeing as neither of us could.

The photos were in my email as expected, twenty or so in total. There were probably hundreds but from the blurring in these one's alone I guessed it wasn't very easy to photograph an excited child when all she wanted to do was play.

I'd never tried though. The last time I'd seen her in the flesh was when she was four months old, the day Edward's parents had moved them away where no one would know Vanessa was his—or that she was mine.

While the both of us outrightly refused to let them adopt her, they had pretty much taken over her parental duties as if it were the nineteen forties and teenaged parents were a social taboo that they were desperately trying to hide.

Now that my parents had stopped fighting (also known as stopped talking at all) it wasn't as bad here as it had been three years ago when I knew it would be a horrible mistake to announce my pregnancy. It wasn't a nightly occurrence to hear a wall crumble under a fist or something smash when either of them threw something at a wall.

Most people's parents would just get divorced but mine actually couldn't afford to separate despite the fact that neither of them was objecting to it.

It was tragic really.

And so they went into silence and ignorance instead. Mom did the wedding's shit, Dad composed his commercial jingles and we all ignored the tension.

"_OW! RICKY!_" Angela screeched somewhere else in the house.

Well, almost ignored the tension. Eric had turned into a real prick once the silence had began and chosen someone smaller than himself to pick on. As all bullies do.

I finished looking through the pictures and read the update he'd written me then logged out and went to deal with my siblings seeing as my parents never would in case the other came in to do the same and God forbid they would have to talk to each other.

Three years and I still knew that this was definitely not the right place for another child to grow up in.

**Any questions asked will be answered at the beginning of the next chapter so ask away.**


	3. Hiatus

Hey guys,

Some of you already know this, but for those who don't, two weeks ago I had my first child (Kirsten).

... yeah, this is going where you think it is...

I, naively, was under the impression that I would actually have time to do things while she was sleeping. But it turns out that I barely get enough time to clean up before I have to do everything all over again once she wakes up. Writing doesn't even cross my mind most days. With an average of about four hours sleep a night and the same throughout the day, a constant RIVER of relatives passing through, excessive amounts of washing, and general child care, I get about thirty minutes a day to scratch my ass and that time is usually filled with a shower.

They say it gets easier, so I'm gonna go ahead and pre-emptively estimate that by June I might be able to spit out something for you guys. But no _promises._

I hope no one's overly pissed. I'll get around to it eventually, even if 'eventually' is in five years when my little one's in school :P

Thanks,

Ally xx


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